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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Allright; the last paragraph of your response, I think, is what I was looking 
for.  My biggest problem with this whole mess is seeing the probability of 
very hard working people ( like many of my relatives and some acquaintances) 
being badly hurt.

You don't seem to be saying that they won't be hurt, but instead, that in the 
long term it would be beneficial, after  the pain.  I can accept that.
I don't like it.  Poeple who've always played by the rules that society 
taught are going to get pummeled.  

But, I can accept that point of view.  I've been mis-understanding that you, 
and others, didn't think the average hard-working, frugal person would be 
hurt.   ....bobford


--- On Sat, 10/4/08, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

> From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Throwing the Gun
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Saturday, October 4, 2008, 7:54 AM
> > >I simply do not see how average Joe benefits. 
> Instead, I see the same 
> > people who were reckless before, being able to slide
> through, with some 
> > discomfort.  And, I see Average Joe being crushed
> 
> Curious, Bob, that you persist in seeing that with all
> evidence and logic to 
> the cotrary.  Wendy has this one pretty much correct.
> 
> Rather than take an individual (or the average individual)
> and show how he is 
> involved in credit, you get a more accurate picture if you
> separate each 
> persons Average-Joe-ness from the part of him that
> ins't that average Joe.
> 
> That is, to the extent that Joe is involved in the idle
> moving about of money 
> from there to there hoping to dip his thumb into the flow
> for his living, to 
> that extent he is going to be hurt.
> 
> For example, I have a cell phone, but it most certainly
> does not imply a 
> credit contract.  It's prepaid.  Likely, says I, those
> credit based prepaid 
> contracts will wane and fall by the wayside and prepaid
> service will thrive.  And as 
> a result people will stop wearing their cell phones like
> earrings and gabbing 
> about nothing 24/7.  Yet another good by-product of the
> coming depression.
> 
> I read this morning a montage of whiners (I know some lists
> they could join) 
> saying their business was being throttled for lack of
> credit.  One fellow 
> points to three empty cubicles in his "computer
> service" business and says, I have 
> these three empty stations but can't borrow the money
> to hire three new 
> people.  Say what??  You business is on such a razor edge
> you cannot hire someone 
> unless the bank pays them?   That business needs to fail
> and new businesses not 
> based on that need to take its place.
> 
> Another was a woman running a 'financial
> counseling' company who could not 
> continue if the bank would not loan her more money.   A
> business giving advice 
> needs borrowed money ..... for what?  That business needs
> to fail.
> 
> And so it went, a business to make party banners, nail
> salon, a company to 
> advise people on the best car loan, etc.  All companies
> that do not have to buy 
> inventory or anything else traditionally thought of as a
> reason to borrow 
> money, and yet they all said if they could not get a line
> of credit, they would go 
> out of business.  Fine.  It ought to happen.
> 
> You may be surprised how fast people revert to being
> Average Joes and live 
> lives outside the credit game.  Some like those ridiculous
> "businesses" won't.  
> And people whose access to goods and services depends
> entirely on dipping 
> their thumb in the vast streams of money and credit that so
> recently swirled about 
> us and yet never produce any good or service themselves ...
> these people 
> won't.  
> 
> In one of the film interviews I have of Scott Nearing he is
> chopping his 
> firewood at the age of 95 and delivering a monologue on the
> economy all the while. 
>  He was an economist by profession.  He says, "I wish
> the bankers would find 
> useful employment for themselves and leave the economy
> alone."
> 
> That may be the upshot of this.  Everyone who has been
> making a living by 
> passing around sacks of money and credit to each other may
> hve to find useful 
> employment for themselves.  
> 
> And as to the fact that people have cell phone contracts,
> credit card 
> balances, depend on credit to earn a living, and have a
> mortgage or rent beyond their 
> means ... and they will be 'hurt'.  That's one
> way of looking at it.  They 
> way I look at it is that it will  hurt them like a fever
> hurts you when you have 
> a sickness.  It helps you get over it.  Time to get over
> it.   </HTML>
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